How To Sell Anything Using the StoryBrand Soundbite Strategy in 2026

Kris: [00:00:00] Welcome to from Click to Client, where we transform a confusing message into a clear, compelling story that sells. I'm your host, Chris Jones, StoryBrand marketing expert. I'm here to help you attract more dream clients with the power of story.

Speaker: Here is the wild stat. 82% of coaches fail in their first year of business, and it's not because they're bad at what they do. It's not because they picked the wrong niche. It's not because they're not working hard enough. They fail because when somebody asks them, what do you do?

Nobody understands their answer. Today, I'm gonna show you the exact strategy that changed my business and hundreds of my clients' businesses. This works if you're a coach, a consultant, a financial advisor, really any service provider who sells your expertise. it's called the StoryBrand Soundbite Strategy, and by the end of this episode, you'll know why your current messaging isn't working [00:01:00] in exactly what to do instead.

So let's get into it. All right, so this is a question I hear all the time. I'm good at what I do. Why aren't people buying? So if you're someone who's great at what you do, you get results for your clients and you've got the experience, you've got the heart for what you do. But sales still feel really hard.

I want you to hear something. This is not a reflection of your ability. It is not a reflection of your integrity or your value. The problem isn't your offer, it's not your pricing. It's not your experience. It's not how many certifications that you have. The problem is how people think about you, and that's what we call positioning.

because right now, most of the people who could hire you, they have no idea what you actually do. Not because you haven't told them, but because the way you told them didn't land. So here's what happens in real life. Think about the last time someone asked you, what do you do at a networking event or at a party.

You probably did one of two things. Either you rambled for two minutes trying to [00:02:00] explain all the ways in which you help people, or you said something polished but vague. That sounded really nice, but kind of didn't mean much of anything. They nodded, they smiled. They said, oh, that's cool. And then they changed the subject.

and you walk away thinking, why can't I get anyone to engage in deeper conversations about the work that I do? Why does this feel so hard? But really it's not a sales problem. It's a clarity problem, and it shows up everywhere. It shows up everywhere. You show up online, not just in person. So I'm talking your website and your emails and your social media.

Anywhere somebody encounters your brand and can't figure out what it is you do. And here's what makes this so painful. Most of this rejection is completely silent. People don't email you to say, I went to your website but I couldn't figure out what you did.

So I left. They don't DM you saying, I almost booked a call, but your messaging was confusing to me so I didn't, [00:03:00] they just disappear. No feedback. No, no, no, nothing. Um, and that's kind of, that can leave you really wondering. What's going on, what's not working? I call that invisible rejection, and it's the most expensive problem in your business because you can't fix what you can't see.

You are left thinking the problem is your price or your niche or your current strategy, but the real problem is that people couldn't understand what you offer fast enough to actually care and get excited about it enough to take that next step. So this happens because of simple brain science. There's a biological reason for this. Your brain is always trying to conserve energy. It's literally wired for survival. So when something takes too much mental effort to understand, when it creates confusion, the brain doesn't stick around to figure it out.

It just moves on to something easier to understand. And that's exactly what happens when someone reads your website [00:04:00] and reads phrases like empowering you to step into your authentic self or holistic transformation, helping you live your best life. Those phrases, they sound nice, they sound.

Beautiful. They sound poetic, but they really leave the reader asking more questions than they came with. So they force the reader to translate. What you mean? What does that actually mean? What does holistic transformation actually mean? When people have to work to understand you, they will literally bail.

They will leave. They, our brains are like, Nope, uh, I gotta conserve calories, and this is going to force me to burn too many calories to understand what this is all about. Also, if you're not clear about what you do, people aren't gonna trust that you are the right one to guide them to help them solve their problem.

So let me give you an example of somebody who figured this out in the simplest [00:05:00] possible way. A window cleaner once showed me his business card. It said, look at the nearest window. If it's dirty, call me and I'll clean it. That's it. No providing holistic window solutions. No elevating your home's Visual clarity just.

Look at a dirty window. Think of me. And you know what? Now every time I see a dirty window, I think of that guy. He owns that problem in my brain, and that's what clear positioning does. Now, imagine if your ideal clients had that same reaction when they heard you describe what you do. Not a polite nod. But an instant, oh wow, that's exactly what I need.

Or, wow, my neighbor is dealing with, that's exactly what they need. I'm gonna give them your information.

So the real question is, can changing your words really change your results? Can it really move the needle for your business? I am here to tell you, yes, it can. I have watched it hundreds and hundreds of times. It actually works. It's the number one thing you should be doing if you want more clients. [00:06:00] All right.

Another question that I get a lot, do words actually make that big of a difference? I know what some of you might be thinking right now. Come on Kris. My problem isn't my words. I need more followers. I need better content. And I get why it feels this way, but let me show you what happened when a coach I worked with changed absolutely nothing about her business except the words. This was a leadership coach. She had the same profile, same photo, same content, same audience. She ran two different LinkedIn headlines for 30 days each.

Headline one said, helping leaders reach their full potential. Headline two said, you just got a big leadership promotion, but you feel like an imposter. That's it. That's the only thing that changed with the first headline, polite recognition, people saw it and thought, oh, she's a leadership coach.

That's cool. And they kept scrolling. They didn't reach out and message her. They didn't book a call with her. But with that second headline, executives started reaching out saying, how did you know that's exactly what I'm dealing with right now? Same coach, [00:07:00] same skills, same LinkedIn profile, just one sentence changed, and strangers really begin to be very warm leads that she could easily convert into clients. So here's why this works.

Helping leaders reach their full potential to describe. Everyone. It could be any one of 10,000 leadership coaches. There's nothing for the brain to grab onto. There's no urgency here. But a headline like you just got a big leadership promotion, but you feel like an imposter that describes a moment, a lived, experienced, a Tuesday night problem where someone's lying in bed, wondering if they're gonna get found out.

When you describe a moment your ideal client is actually living through, they don't have to translate anything. They don't have to figure anything out. They don't have to figure out if you're talking to them, they immediately know, this is for me. That's the difference between messaging that gets polite nods and messaging that gets actual paying clients.

And here's the part [00:08:00] that scares people. The narrower you go, the more clients you attract. It feels backwards, right? You think if I go broader, I'll reach more people. But broad messaging reaches everyone and actually truly connects with no one. Specific messaging might skip over some people, but the right people, they're gonna stop in their tracks.

They're gonna message you, they're gonna DM you, they're gonna book a call, they're gonna tell you their friends. So how do you get that kind of clarity on purpose? That's what we're gonna talk about next. so the question is. Is there a simple framework to solve this problem? Yes, there is a framework for this, and I want to set expectations upfront.

This is not about being clever or nuanced. It's, it's really about branding language. It's not about telling your life story in a catchy way. It's about five short phrases designed to make it incredibly easy for someone to understand what you do and why it matters. To them. It comes from StoryBrand, created by my mentor Donald Miller, and [00:09:00] he and I actually just co-authored a book together, applying this framework specifically to coaches and service providers, and I'll tell you more about that later.

But let's talk about the five soundbites, the StoryBrand Soundbite Strategy at the high level. The framework gives you five soundbites, and together they spell the word peace. P stands for problem. This is where you name this specific problem your ideal client is dealing with right now. E is for empathy.

This is where you show up and show them that you actually understand what that feels like. When you show up with empathy, you step into this story as the guide, as the Yoda, as the Mr. Miyagi. A is for answer. This is where you position yourself as the solution to the problem that you just talked about in one simple sentence.

C is for change. This is where you tell them who they're gonna become once their problem is solved. This is all about their aspirational [00:10:00] identity. Then the final E is for end result. This is where you paint the picture of what life looks like on the other side. Together. These five phrases create instant clarity.

They grab attention, they become the front steps to your business. The thing that makes someone stop and say, tell me more. Okay. Let me show you what this sounds like for a real business. let's say you're a business coach.

Your problem soundbite would be you built a business you can't step away from. If I was in that position and I read that headline. I would get pulled into that. Your empathy soundbite would be, feeling trapped by a business you've built is exhausting. I'm gonna repeat that. Empathy is so simple. Feeling trapped by a business you built is exhausting.

Your answer, I help entrepreneurs build companies that run without them. Your change soundbite is become a confident CEO who knows how to delegate and your end result. Take real vacations while your [00:11:00] business runs without you. So now notice what's not in those five soundbite phrases. No jargon, no nuance, no methodology, no detail about how you solve the problem.

No, you know, leveraging detailed framework that you use. It's very high level and it's meant to grab attention. Each one is a single sentence, and yet when a burnout business owner hears those five phrases, they're not politely nodding. They're thinking, how do I work with this person? Because that's exactly where I am. And if they understand my problem to this degree, they are obviously the best one to solve it. And that's the shift that I want you to feel. I want you to stop explaining what you do and how you do it, and, and start describing what they're experiencing. When you describe what someone's feeling, they trust you before you've even had a conversation, and that's the power of this soundbite strategy.

now we're gonna get into. [00:12:00] The common mistakes that people make with their messaging. Okay, so now you've seen what really good soundbites look like and what happens when they work. Let me save you some pain. Here are the five mistakes I see people make over and over again. Mistake number one, making it about you.

The first one is really. When you lead with your story, your credentials, your certification, I'm a certified life coach with a master, master in psychology and 15 years of experience, and your potential client's eyes blur and glaze over. So here's why that doesn't work. When you lead with your credentials, you've positioned yourself as the main character.

You've become the hero of this story. But your client doesn't need another hero in their life. They need a guide. They want someone who sees their problem and knows how to fix it. Your client doesn't care about your resume. They care about your ability to solve their problem. Lead with that, lead with their story.

It doesn't mean [00:13:00] your credentials aren't important, it's just you wanna introduce them at the right time after you've positioned your clients as the hero of your story. Mistake number two is being vague, and honestly, this is the most common one that I see.

I help people find balance. I guide women to step into their power. I support professionals in transition. These phrases feel safe and broad, and I get why people create them. But you, you know, I think it comes from a good place. You don't wanna exclude anyone, but they really don't mean much of anything.

A, a potential client would read that and go, what, what does that actually mean for me? When they leave your website, they're not gonna end up taking action. that goes back to that invisible rejection that we talked about. Mistake number three. Super common is over complicating.

This is when you try and capture everything you do in one sentence or on one page, and you get into the weeds with the details, you might list out three outcomes, two [00:14:00] different audiences, a couple different methodologies and sentences just keep having more commas, and they get longer and longer. And the clarity.

Diminishes with every word that you add. Here's my rule. If you can't say it in one breath, it's too long. You need to cut it down. I would say, as a general rule, everybody that I talk to when I look at their website, my initial reaction is, cut it down to half. Remove half of the words that you have on this page.

As as, as a general rule. Alright, mistake number four, skipping empathy. And this is kind of a sneaky one because you name the problem and then you immediately jump to your solution thinking, oh, I just articulated the problem. Now I need to talk about my solution. But it's really important that after you share the problem or after you articulate, articulate the problem, that you follow that up with empathy.

let me share with you what this sounds like. So if you had a headline that was struggling with your weight [00:15:00] sign up for my program, that feels salesy. It feels like you have an agenda, um, and that you're kind of too eager to sell me on your offer or your program. People really need to feel understood.

And connected with and empathized with before they trust you. They need that moment where you say, I get it. This is hard. I get it. This is hard. They need to hear that before they're ready to hear what you offer. So don't skip over empathy. If you skip that step, they're gonna feel sold to and not seen.

And then the last one, the last mistake, number five is pivoting too fast. So a lot of coaches change their positioning every couple months because they're not seeing results fast enough. But here's the reality, you need about 90 days of consistent messaging before you can actually judge whether it's working.

You need that time to. To say it to people in real life, [00:16:00] to talk to people on Zoom, to get a response to understand if it's working. Like your, your message needs time to gain traction. Just about when you get bored with your messaging is just about when it begins to gain traction. So people need to hear your message multiple times.

I think it's gone up, but it, it, it's at least eight times. People need to hear the same message before they can actually commit it to memory. So the more you repeat things, actually the better it is. Every time you pivot, you are not building momentum. You are starting from zero again. So. Pivot with caution.

I'm not saying that you can't pivot, but give your message enough time to work. So you might be saying, okay, I'm in. I'm sold. When can I get started? So if you're thinking I need to do this, here's the fastest way to start, and it's probably not what you'd expect. Don't go rewrite your website, don't redesign your Instagram.

Don't spend three [00:17:00] hours on Canva. Go talk to a real human. Next time somebody asks you what you do at an event, at a, at a dinner party, at a coffee shop, use your sound bites. Just try them out loud and then watch what happens. Are they leaning in? Are they asking a follow-up question? Are they telling you about someone they know that has that problem?

If yes, your soundbites are working, if they glaze over and change the subject, that's data too. That means refine it and tweak it and try again. You can learn more about your messaging in about two hours of real conversations than you can in 90 days of posting on LinkedIn or Instagram.

I also wanna introduce to you the idea of the one-liner, and I have a freebie, uh, on how to do this on my website. So the formula you can use for answering that question, what do you do? Um, it's called the one-liner and the spoken version goes like this, okay, I'm pretending somebody is asking me what I do, and I'm gonna say, you [00:18:00] know, how.

Women often struggle in perimenopause with brain fog. Uh, I help them rebalance their home hormones so they can wake up refreshed, get their brain back, and have energy throughout the day. So that is a spoken version of that, and you can have a written version of it as well. It's like a little bit more.

It's not more formal, but, but it doesn't start with, you know, how, um, so you can follow that format to answer that question, what do you do? So I'm gonna repeat it one more time. You know how. Who fill in who, who's your audience? You know how, who struggles with problem? Fill in the problem right there. I help them fill in the blank solution so they can fill in the blank result when, um, it's a little bit challenging to do it. Via audio. So if you really wanna dig into this, go to my website and download the free [00:19:00] guide that's called How to Write Compelling Copy in five minutes, Flat, and it will give you a little worksheet and a little five minute tutorial on that.

Okay, so that is it. Fill in those blanks. Draft three versions this week and read them out loud. Then go out into the world and answer that question. What do you do? You don't have to cringe anymore. You don't have to feel awkward, you don't have to wing it. Every time somebody asks you, you, you're gonna have memorized that answer.

And about the fifth time you do it, it's gonna click and it's really gonna get kind of down into your cellular memory and it's gonna feel so much more fun to do.

So here's what I want you to walk away with today. The five soundbites that we talked about are not taglines. They're not something you put on a mug and forget about. They're literally infrastructure for your business.

They go on your website header, they go in your Instagram bio, they go on your LinkedIn banner, they go in your email signature on your sales calls, literally anywhere you're wanting to get attention, you put those sound bites, you can put 'em in your proposals, really anywhere [00:20:00] somebody encounters your brand and when you get them right.

Something will shift. I promise. I've watched it Time and time again. You stop having to explain yourself and convince people about what you do and why they should buy. You start attracting the right people who already feel like you understand them. This is huge. Now, if you wanna go deeper on this. I actually just finished writing a book about this with Donald Miller, the creator of StoryBrand.

It's called StoryBrand, your Coaching Business. 12 Simple Strategies that Make Dream Clients Say Yes. The Soundbite strategy is the foundation of that book. It's the foundation of our work together.But then the book is gonna walk you through all the details on exactly how to do it. Alright? And if you are wanting help, now you're thinking, I need someone to help me figure this out. I want my soundbites. That's literally what I do every day. Head to red door stories.com and book a moneymaking messaging call with me.

We'll look at your current messaging. We'll find the gaps. [00:21:00] We'll identify your sound bites and we'll figure out what's working and what's not and what you actually need.

Even if you don't book a call with me, I want you to do this one thing. Stop using phrases that nobody can repeat, and start using five clear soundbites that makes the right people say yes. That is exactly what I need, because when your message is clear, it does the selling for you, and that truly changes everything.

Thank you so much for being here today. Is your website turning away Potential clients? I can help you turn that around. Book a moneymaking messaging call with me today and we'll transform your story into your most powerful sales tool. That's all for this episode of From Click to Client. Don't forget to subscribe and follow. I'm Chris Jones and I'll see you next.